


Distance makes the heart grow fonder

by sgsupergirl



Series: Scholsen Week 2017 [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: BAMF Winn, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Scholsen Week 2017, Undercover, basically everyone thinks they're destined to be, meeting after a long time, the whole street ships it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 06:25:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10916169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgsupergirl/pseuds/sgsupergirl
Summary: Scholsen Week 2017 Day 1: UndercoverWinn gets send on his very first undercover mission for the DEO. There however he meets a long lost friend and a bunch of friendly but nosy neighbours.





	Distance makes the heart grow fonder

Although it wasn’t by far his first mission anymore, Winn always felt his stomach drop a little when J’onn assigned him something out on the field.   
To comfort himself, he thought of what Alex had told him, back when he had gone to Slaver’s Moon. “I’m getting better. No one gets better by running away. I’m not running away. I’m getting better”

He scoffed. An undercover mission! It sounded so much like an action movie he would watch on Saturday Nights not like his actual real life. And yet here he was, getting a folder with every information he needed about the person he was supposed to become for the next few weeks to crack an alien underground organisation outside the city.

They’ve been giving them grief for the longest time and now they finally found a vague source of the distributed highly unstable alien technology that had been appearing in messy human led crimes. 

Unfortunately they still had to find the actual people involved that probably were living in an alien friendly community and the DEO decided to send an agent undercover to gain the trust of the neighbourhood. The mission required high skills in technology and hacking and apparently, Winn was their best candidate. 

When Kara told him this Winn had tried to back out. “They must have forgotten that it also requires high skills in, I don’t know, combat and bravery, so no I’m not your best shot” 

But the Danvers sisters refused to let him get away with his excuses and now Winn found himself in his car, going over his new identity, on the way to his living arrangements until he had completed his orders.

The last time he was working away from his desk at the DEO had probably been with Guardian. And he did miss those times. Everything had been great until someone had exposed James as National City’s newest vigilante in his position at CatCo. The following reactions from the public and his employees made James quit his hero persona and later on his Job and just a month later he moved away and was never seen around again. 

Instead of thinking about losing contact to his best friend a year ago, Winn tried to concentrate on the task ahead. In his pocket were the keys to the small house where he would be moving in under the name of Jack Nimball. According to J’onn it was already fully prepared but he had to pack a few boxes with additional stuff into his trunk. 

An hour later Winn climbed out of his car, looking down a small street, located in a fairly rural environment. He would have loved to just quietly disappear into the house but he followed his instructions and started rustling loudly with his stuff.

Without fail, like Alex had predicted it, the door next to Winn’s new home opened and an old, kind looking lady rushed towards him with a big smile. 

“You must be the new neighbour!” She patted his shoulder when he nodded in confirmation. “I heard something about someone moving into Shane’s old place but I wasn’t sure. What’s your name dear?”

The woman was talking like she was running away from a high-speed train, making her seem much more agile than a first impression would suggest. 

Winn was proud of himself for only hesitating a mille second before he said “Jack Nimball, ma’am”

The old woman was already moving again. “Alright Jack, my name’s Helena” Then she stepped into her doorstep again and shouted   
somewhere upstairs. “Thomas, come outside! And bring the cake you made today, we have a new neighbour! Jamie! Go get Jimmy and Brian to help the man with his stuff!”

Winn stepped forward. “Oh no that’s alright, I’ll manage!”

Helena, his new neighbour, waved dismissively and shooed a two young adults around the age of 20 out of the door. The older one of the two stepped forward with a small cake on a plate. Helena beamed at him proudly.

“This is my grandson Thomas. Thomas, this is Jack Nimball, he’s living at Shane’s old house now!”

Winn noticed they both had the same warm smile.

Helena also pointed to the young girl she sent off to get others and introduced her as Jamie, her granddaughter and then she proceeded to lead them into the kitchen of Winn’s new house.

He felt like he was being swept away by a whirlwind. 

Meanwhile the old lady kept on talking like a waterfall. “Brian lives next door. He’s from some Planet outta there, I think it’s called Aloi. He’s nice, really open. Jimmy is from across the street. He actually came here from National City. He doesn’t talk that much, such a quiet guy. But you don’t seem too talkative too. I think you’ll get along well.”

Winn refrains from remarking that he hadn’t had much of a chance to say something yet. Instead he follows granny and grandson outside again. 

The neighbourhood did sound very much like a big family. On the one hand it was reassuring, because it would ease his way into the community but on the other hand, Winn already felt his resentment grow to rat one of those people out. 

But all of these thoughts were wiped from his mind immediately when he stepped out of the house and saw James, the James Olsen, coming out of the house on the other side of the street.

Winn stood frozen in his spot, staring at James, who was mirroring his position, until Thomas bumped his shoulder into Winn’s, whispering “I know, he looks like a god, right?”

Still trying to shake the shock, Winn stumbled a few steps forward and stammered a rather clumsy “Hi”  
Next to James appeared a man with a blue glow to his skin, stretching out his hand. “I’m Brian and that star struck guy there is Jimmy” He winked. 

Winn shook both his and James’ hand, sending his former friend a pointed look, which, he hoped, said: please don’t blow my cover! “I’m Jack” he said, having registered that everybody seemed to be on first name basis from the start here.

When he started to grab one of his boxes, Winn still felt James’ eyes on him. He and Brian kept whispering behind his back and then followed him into the house with the rest of the stuff. 

After everything was set up roughly, James was trailing behind the others and soon he and Winn were alone.   
“So…” Winn was fishing for things to say but the shock of seeing his friend again still rendered him Speechless.

“Jack, huh?” James raised an eyebrow. 

“Shut up, J’onn picked that out for me.”

And suddenly they were breaking into laughter, over the ridiculousness of the entire situation and probably also from the relief of seeing each other again. 

Winn was about to explain everything to James when Helena, the old neighbour, stepped through the door that still was open. With a blinding smile she walked up to them and rubbed James’ arm motherly.

“I knew you too would be good friends. Look at you, already laughing with each other! It’s nice to see you let loose a bit Jimmy, you’re always so serious.”

James scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment and Winn tried to keep the fond expression at bay. 

“Anyways” Helena kept on talking, “I forgot to ask you to come to our community dinner in my backyard tomorrow. You should introduce yourself to the rest of us!”

Winn nodded, astonished at how easy this seemed to be going. “Yeah-yes, I would very much like that”

Helena smiled at him again and turned towards James “Jimmy, would you mind helping me with my new shelves?” They left the house and 

James turned around towards Winn once more, eyes twinkling with humour and something else Winn couldn’t quite pin down. 

“Bye, Jack!” He said pointedly, making it hard for Winn to contain his laughter.

“Bye Jimmy! It was great to- um to get to know you!” 

When the door was closed behind his visitors, Winn started to set up his gear in the back room and pulled out his data. He was going to kill Alex for not telling him about James living here. 

After hours of reviewing information, setting up tech and dwelling on old memories he heard a soft knock on the front door. Looking outside he realized it was already pretty dark and he hesitantly pulled out his weapon, remembering another one of the lectures he got before starting this mission. 

He cursed the door for not having a peephole and opened it a small crack, only to see James standing there. 

He let him in trying and failing to put away the gun unnoticed. 

“You opened the door with a weapon?” For the second time that day, James raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Hey, it’s security protocol.” Winn suddenly started to feel defensive. James’ smile dropped in an instant at the serious tone.

“Right. We need to talk. Obviously.”

“Yes. Obviously. James, what exactly are you doing here?” Winn sounded way harsher than he had intended to but his anger was getting to him. “Why exactly did you just leave without another word? Was… Were we of that little importance to you?”

James’ face fell even more at that. “Winn, I – okay listen, I needed to get out. I was afraid you’d make me stay.”

Winn wanted to deny it but he knew that was exactly what he would have done. Before he could say anything else, James fired back at him, clearly determined to steer away from the subject at hand.

“And what are you doing here? Is this some DEO stuff? Since when do they even send their Tech-Experts out on missions?”

Winn held up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Yes, this is for the- for work, classified information though mostly. I got a lot more of these jobs…since you left.”

James rubbed his arms uncomfortably. “Oh. That’s… that’s great, good for you man.” They stood in awkward silence for a moment. Then Winn dared a glance at his friend.

“It’s good to see you again. Like, really good”

James broke out into a grin. “You too, Winn” He cleared his throat. “So… we have a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?”

They talked until two a.m. and even after James’ had sneaked his way back across the street, Winn couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. 

He woke up the next morning where he dozed off, next to all his screens and devices that were trying to detect suspicious activity. 

In his time monitoring the street, the most curious thing he detected was an incredibly high level of Dhorian signals, that were send out by the Planets highly advanced technology. It matched with the weapons they had found at multiple crime scenes before.   
J’onn had warned him though to not look for one particular alien race because innocent trade in between earth located aliens was a fairly common thing. Not that Winn would have made that mistake in the first place because he had noticed that almost every weapon had been a hybrid of different materials that were from planets light-years apart. 

He had high hopes for the community dinner though, planning on getting to know all the possible suspects and maybe scan them for any traces of suspicious material. 

He felt like an attacker, which made his stomach turn. 

Trying to distract himself and, okay, maybe also hoping to meet James, Winn stepped out by midday to find a store nearby. 

He was happy to find that James was awkwardly hovering near his entrance, his face lighting up when he spotted his friend. 

They were already immersed in light conversation again, and Winn was astonished at how easily things had fallen back into place, when Brian stepped out of his home. 

The alien walked up to them with a knowing smirk on his face. “Helena told me you’ve been getting on well. You’re so happy and relaxed today, Jimmy!”

“I’ve just been helping Jack with some interior.” James said quickly, the same time Winn blurted out: “Jimmy just explained the way to the store to me”

They looked at each other embarrassed and back to Brian, whose smile just grew. “I know, I know. I’ve heard that here on earth some people believe that it can happen that two people who were meant to be meet and they form an instant connection.”

“Oh, like an instant friendship that just clicks?” Winn asked nervously. What if someone discovered his secret, that he wasn’t who he pretended to be.  
“No, like romantic soul mates” 

And with that Brian casually walked away, leaving behind the two friends at loss of words. 

The rest of the day, Winn tried to behave like a regular human being. He walked around the neighbourhood, he explored his backyard, he got himself a mailbox name tag. 

In the early evening, he stood in front of his mirror, straightening out his shirt once more. Despite always thinking of his mission, Winn couldn’t ignore the fact that he was looking forward to seeing James again. Looking forward to a lot actually. He wondered for a moment if the saying was true and the distance did make his heart grow fonder. 

At exactly seven p.m. Winn knocked on Helena’s door and was led through the house into a beautiful little backyard. A few people were already there. Winn spotted a bunch of aliens and in one corner, James, who was greeting him immediately. 

Helena already had her knowing smile back on and patted both of them on the backs. “I’m so glad you two are getting so close!”

Winn got flashbacks of old times when he still was a shy elementary school kid and his mother was desperate for him to find friends. 

He got introduced to all the other guests, trying to come off as normal as possible, while simultaneously scanning everyone without them noticing.

Of course James saw what was going on and when Helena was done showing Winn around, he walked up to his friend. 

“What on earth are you doing?!” 

Winn just gave him a look. He wouldn’t risk talking about his plans and mission here. James let out a huff.

“Are you implying that-“ 

“Jimmy”, Winn interrupted him, searching eye contact. “Trust me.”

Surprisingly, that shut James up. 

At dinner, Winn tried to absorb as much information as possible about the neighbourhood. He was sitting next to Helena and he could feel James eyes on him every time he asked a borderline suspicious question.

The more information he got, the more he was stressing out. Winn had arrived on this street in a state of panic and it was rising by the minute. 

Every data he collected was inconclusive; the scans of Helena’s guests didn’t show any actual, helpful facts either and on top of that he had James possibly threatening his cover. 

He had planted some more devices along the streets to record radiation and inform him if anything out of order were to happen and that was all he could have done but Winn still felt incredibly restless. He didn’t want to fail his mission. 

James seemed to sense his nervousness because when they moved from the dinner table to stand around in the garden with drinks in their hands, he went to stand next to Winn and briefly placed a reassuring hand on the small of his back. When he pulled back, he gave his friend a warm smile and Winn gave him his best nervous grin in return. 

Looking around at all of the others Winn swirled his drink in his glass around. 

“So, Jimmy, how long have you been living here?”

James eyes twinkled with humour. 

“For about a year now, Jack.” 

They tried to keep their laughter at bay, while continuing their light banter. 

The guest began leaving now and soon only the closest neighbours were still there. Helena was back at their sides, pushing them ever so slightly towards Jamie, Thomas and Brian, who were standing in the far corner of the garden. The small group seemed delighted to engage into conversation with both of them. 

“Look at our boy” Helena’s eyes were full of fondness, directed at James. The others were obviously agreeing on whatever she was talking about. Jamie nodded enthusiastically.

“Totally. He is so much more relaxed and happy today. Jimmy, you smiled so much today, I never see you smile!”

Winn wanted to answer: What do you mean? James smiles all the time! Until he realized that that may not have been the case while he was living here. And he should be the reason that that changed again?

Helena seemed to think so. 

“I think we’re witnessing something so beautiful here. I can clearly see the connection between you two, it’s like you’re soul mates!”

“Aaah, young love”, Thomas said, as if he wasn’t way younger than both Winn and James. 

Winn grew uncomfortable and just was about to start a big rambling session when his phone buzzed lightly in his pocket, in a combination that told him that his devices must have detected something. 

Immediately all thoughts about feelings and James were wiped from his mind and replaced with anxiety about the mission. 

He managed to bid his goodbyes without stuttering, telling everyone that he was heading home too. Barely registering Helena and James whispering in his back, he made his way through the house and the front door onto the street. 

He was already a few steps away when he heard a voice behind him calling. 

“Jack!” James was lightly jogging after him. “Winn. Helena suggested I’d walk you home. She’s…wait a minute, where are you going?”

Winn was heading towards the location where one of his detectors had gone off, which was the opposite direction of his house. 

“The…the work thing I told you about.”

James took in a sharp breath. “Oh. “

He hesitated for a bit. “Is it going to be dangerous?”

“Probably, yes.” Winn didn’t want to think about it. With shaking hands he turned away to just get it over with but James placed a gentle hand on his arm. 

“Wait!”

Winn turned around and was met by an emotional and impulsive Kiss from James. When he started kissing back, suddenly the whole mission seemed less scary.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. I was out of time while writing this, I didn't even run it by my beta. I hope you liked it either way. It's super long and rushed too because my idea got a bit out of hand...Anyways, stay tuned for the rest of the week!  
> Talk to me on tumblr @sgsupergirl  
> Look up scholsen week @scholsenweek2017


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